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23 December, 2014

Christmas - Childhood memories

I have many childhood memories associated with Christmas. Did you study in any Christian missionary school? I did. Whoever has studied in a missionary school can relate well to this post. Christmas reminds me of the following:1. Christmas Carols:The word Carol means 'dance to something'. Our music teacher used to teach these songs from November itself. We have a tradition to sing a song after our daily morning prayer in the school. We used to sing these carols during morning prayer and even in the church behind our school.2. Christmas tree and star:As per the tradition, Christians bring decorated Spruce/pine/fir tree to home to celebrate Christmas. They decorate it with edibles like apples, nuts or candy canes and with specific ornaments like balls and illuminate it with candles. As per the history, Christmas star is placed outside households to commemorate star of Bethlehem which revealed the birth of Jesus.On the way from our home to school, we used to count number of stars decorated outside the houses and used to discuss which one is good. There used to be a Christmas tree decorated in school too. We have an arts and crafts class which targets on preparing crafts from waste. Our arts and crafts teacher used to teach on preparing simple crafts to decorate Christmas tree.

3. Santa Claus:Saint Nicholas, a 4th century Bishop has a habit to gift to children. In US, People called him Santa clause. So, this tradition of gifting started from there.Now, comes the favourite part of Christmas :) Our head mistress or any other senior teacher used to come as Santa Clause before Christmas with 'jingle bells' playing in the background and used to distribute chocolates in the morning prayer.

4. Chrisma Chrischild game:It's also known as Secret Santa. It shows children the importance of kindness or giving. Teacher used to distribute one chit to each student on which some other student's name would be written. We will become Secret Santa / Chrismom for the student on our chit and he/she will become our Chris child. There used to be a Christmas tree or gift stand kept outside the corridor of the school, where Secret Santa should can place their gift to Chris child without revealing their identity. It's a fun experience to play this game altogether :) Sometimes, our Secret Santa can also assign some simple tasks to chris child in return to the gift like singing a multi lingual song in each class, reading weather reports, coming to school dressed in ethnic wear etc., So, December month used to be funny throughout :)I had fun time with this game both in school days and also after I joined office. So, these were few things that i remember from my childhood days about Christmas. There is a blog hop #ChristmasBonanza happening in this month with around 20+ blogger publishing a blog post per day throughout the month. So, enjoy the posts :)Until next time,